Evaluation by Proton-Radiation Tests of a COTS-Embedded Computer Running the cFS Flight-Mission Software for a Nanosatellite

This work aims to evaluate the feasibility of using a COTS-embedded computer as an on-board computer (OBC) for nanosatellites in academic projects. The prototype is based on the BeagleBone Black board, which runs the cFS flight-mission software on the RTEMS operating system. For evaluation purposes, 15.9 MeV proton-accelerated radiation tests were performed at the CNA facility to obtain the soft-error rate of the DDR3 SDRAM. Results show the presence of bit-flips in memory cells, leading to error propagation, and a burst of errors produced by SEEs, affecting the control logic of the SDRAM memory. Despite the errors and accumulated dose, the board continued to function normally, with a worst-case FIT indicating that one failure every two years is expected in the SDRAM memory. This study suggests the possibility of using BeagleBone Black as an OBC for LEO. In addition, the article provides clues on how redundancy-based fault tolerance can be implemented.